My promise to you is that by the end of this video, you’ll have everything that you need to know to pass the CompTIA Security+ exam and become Security+ certified. We’re going to cover why you need the certification, the benefits of the Security+ for GovTech career, what you should do to prepare for the certification. Where to find practice exams, how to register for the exam and what you should do after you pass the exam. By the way, if you don’t know me, my name is Simone B and I’ve been in the govtech industry for over 15 years and I’ve helped hundreds of other people get the Security+ certification and pass it on the first try so you can get into the govtech industry just like I did. So if you’re not familiar with the CompTIA Security+ certification, this certification is the ground level for starting off your cybersecurity career. Now, it is not extremely hands on or anything like that, but it does cover a lot of information. I always like to say that the Security+ certification is a mile wide and an inch deep, so there’s a lot of different topics and a lot of different domains that are covered inside of this exam. The security 701 exam has changed up a bit from the security 601 exam, with the main focus being on security operations and incident response. That now makes up about 20% of the exam and the rest of the exam. That change was literally just name changes based off of the domain names.
So everything else is pretty much the same as the 601 exam. I think it’s a great thing that CompTIA decided to focus on more of the security operational tasks that a SoC analyst would do, or entry level cybersecurity analyst would do in their day to day roles when they’re working in cyber security. This is great because it allows you to have a little bit more hands on knowledge. Even though it’s not a hands on test, it gives you more industry knowledge. So then that way when you go into your interviews, you at least do understand what a SOC analyst does and what you should be doing in a SoC. And if you aren’t familiar with what a SoC is, a sock is a security operations center. So when you’re first starting out in your cybersecurity career, most likely you’ll be working in a sock. So you definitely want to get very familiar with the day to day tasks and the knowledge that you need to become an entry level cybersecurity professional. The reason why the security plus is so important, and how it opens up so many doors for you, is because it is an industry standard for the government technology industry, which is also known as GovTech. In GovTech, the government has a lot of different baselines and a lot of different requirements that everybody has to meet, and there’s no way to get around them. So the government has a baseline set of certification when it comes to information assurance, also known as cyber security.
Now, when it comes to getting into GovTech, if you want to have root access or administrative access to the government systems, you need to have at least the CompTIA Security Plus certification, because that way, the government feels as if everybody has the same baseline knowledge when it comes to security and securing their systems. The Security+ certification can add so much value to your career.
For me, the Security+ certification is what allowed me to double my tech salary, going from $72,000 a year to $140,000 a year because it opened up so many different job roles to me. So if you’ve been applying to GovTech roles, or you’ve take a look at any of the job descriptions, you might see something that says you must be DoD IA level two certified. And basically all that means is the Security+.
There are other certifications that are listed in this classification as well, but a lot of job descriptions were specifically called out for the Security+, so you might as well get it. In the GovTech industry, there are pretty much making everybody get the Security+ certification. Whether you’re a project manager, you’re a software engineer, you’re a cybersecurity professional, you’re a help desk professional. So it’s in your best interest to just knock it out now. So that way you can get your foot in the door and open up a lot more job opportunities to you when you start applying to different cybersecurity roles.
Typically, when it comes to the CompTIA Security+ certification, I don’t recommend that you go into it if you don’t have any foundational IT background knowledge. So if you want to learn these foundational IT skills, you can learn them right on YouTube.
Or you can buy a book that covers the IT skills. So you can look at CompTIA IT plus certification, which is the IT Foundation certifications. You can look at the CompTIA A+ information. I do not recommend people to take the CompTIA A+ certification, just because the amount of time and the money that it costs to get the certification, something that a lot of people get very confused with when it comes to knowledge and trying to break into a new industry, is that they think that you have to get a certification to prove that you have certain technical knowledge, and that’s just not the case. When you go into your job interviews, the job interviewer will ask you questions to see what your background is when it comes to the role that you’re applying for, so you don’t need a certification. There are many people that work in the IT field that have no certifications whatsoever, so don’t think that you have to get a certification just to prove that you have the knowledge. You should only be getting certifications if it’s required for the job. If it’s not required for the job, you might be wasting your money unless you decide that you know what, I want to go for this certification because I want the knowledge.
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This is something that I want to go after. But don’t spend your time chasing a million different certifications thinking that’s what’s going to land you the job. If you’re looking at different job descriptions and you don’t see the certifications that you’re studying for, or you don’t see the certifications that you paid for on them, then don’t get it. I’m telling you, save yourself some time because you want to try to break into whatever tech industry very quickly. So spend at least a month learning the basic skills when it comes to computers Software.
Networking hardware. Also, learn about virtual machines and learn about virtualization. And you can learn a little bit about cloud as well. And then you’ll start to learn more about the basics of security. And once you start doing that, that’s when you can start to make that transition into the Security+ certification information. So now that I’ve covered all of the background about the Security+, what things you need to know before you get started. Now let’s talk about what you need to do to prepare for the exam. So like I said before, make sure you have that foundational IT knowledge or it will be challenging to get started with the Security+. Once you get that foundational IT knowledge, start studying for the Security+. I like to use the Get Certified Get ahead book.
The Get Certified Get Ahead book is what helped me pass the certification, and it’s literally all that you need when it comes to learning the information. That book covers everything that you need to know. It’s broken down in a way that pretty much anybody can understand it. And there are quizzes at the end of every single chapter. So that way that you can assess yourself and assess the knowledge that you’re learning along the way while you’re going through the book.
You want to make sure that you are taking notes. I prefer handwritten notes, but you can always use a tablet or anything like that to take your notes as well. Or you can type on the computer. You should also be writing flashcards and highlighting different keywords and different topics that you’re learning, because this way it will allow you to reinforce the learning that you’re doing, and it’s going to allow you to memorize the information better. So while you’re doing this highlighting, you can highlight in the real book.
Or if you’re using Kindle, they have the highlight tool there as well. And when it comes to the acronyms, you should be making flashcards as well, because these flashcards, they’re going to help you really reinforce. And there are tons of acronyms in the CompTIA Security+ certification. Really any CompTIA certification that you take. So you want to make sure that you understand the acronyms by utilizing flashcards so you can write handmade flashcards.
